Old Friends, New Love
by Ratchet's Apprentice 88
Summary: Melanie Davis is Tony Stark's old friend from college. When she's invited to stay in the tower and help in the lab, things are sure get a little insane. Romance blossoms, stories are told, things explode. Hey, a lot can happen in two weeks. Bruce/OC
1. Meet The Gang

**Hello to all of you that have clicked on this story! :-) This is my first Avengers fanfic and I hope you like it! :-)**

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Avengers Tower at breakfast time. There is only one word to describe it, chaotic. Everyone does something different. Tony is working on his latest gadget at the table while eating dry toast, Steve is making eggs, Pepper's working on coffee, Natasha and Clint are discussing, once again, what happened in Budapest, Thor is rapidly consuming a plate piled high with pop tarts, and Bruce is reading the newspaper and drinking a cup of tea. It's hard to believe that this all lead to a massive fight. They were all yelling and no one could really understand what was being said. Though every once in a while, a "Let's just all calm down!", "You must be on crack! Are you insane?!", or a "You wanna go?! Come at me!" could be distinctly heard among the racket. These fights were a regular occurrence in the tower. The Avengers all cared and protected each other, like any good, slightly dysfunctional, team did. If one was broken, the others would always be there to help pick up the pieces. They were a family, but that didn't mean they always saw eye to eye. No, not even close. It was during this argument that JARVIS interrupted them with news. "Ms. Davis is in the lobby, Sir." he said. Everyone froze in their places, all yelling had ceased momentarily.

"Davis?" Tony asked.

"Yes, Sir. Shall I bring her up?" JARVIS questioned.

"Yes" Tony replied.

"Right away Sir." Everyone turned to stare at Tony. The expressions on all of their faces read 'who?'.

"Did I forget to tell you guys? JARVIS, I thought I asked you remind me to tell them." The billionaire asked his AI.

"No Sir. You told me "Don't tell them dude, it's a surprise. Wait, a surprise? We should have a party! Remind me buy more booze!' You said not to inform them, so I did not." JARVIS said, which sounded kind of ridiculous in his slightly metallic British accent, but it was sort of interesting as well because JARVIS was able to repeat what his creator had said with the same emotion. It was honestly like JARVIS was wasted, just as Tony undoubtedly was.

"Oh" said Tony. "Well, an old friend from college is coming by. Today. Her name is Melanie. We were real close. Spent a lot of nights in the lab together,"

"Please don't tell us that she's bringing your kid." Clint interrupted.

"No!" Tony snapped. "Not that kind of close. Anyway, she specializes in gamma radiation and I brought her here to help out me and Bruce in the lab. You know, to try and figure out the enormous green rage monster thing. She's incredibly smart, she the same age as I am. That's one of the main reasons we were so close. We were the only fourteen year olds at MIT. She'll be staying for two weeks. You guys will love her, she's just like me! Kind of, sort of, maybe, little bit."

The conversation ended just in time for the elevator to ding and blonde haired woman stepped out. She was average height, about five foot four. She had a petite build and brown eyes. Her long, straight hair made it down to her mid back. She pulled her suitcase and duffel bag out of the elevator and set them to the side. Then she went over to hug her old friend. "Tony!" She jumped up into his arms and his arms wrapped around her. After about five seconds, he set her back down. "It's great to see you again! God, I've missed you! It's been way too long! The physics conference in Italy seven years ago was the last time I saw you, right?"

Tony nodded. "Yeah, I think so."

"You look great!" she exclaimed.

"And you look,…like you." Tony replied with a less than impressed face.

Melanie's grin only got bigger. "Dick!"

It was Tony's turn to smile. "Slut!" They hugged again but this time all feet stayed on the floor.

This made Steve internally winced. Not at the choice language, but because he and Bucky would often mess around in a similar way.

Once they released each other, Tony shook his head fondly. "You haven't changed a bit. Did you do anything stupid while I was away?" he asked.

"How could I? You took all the stupid with you." She answered.

Steve actually cringed this time. This was becoming painful, there were too many memories.

"Mel, there are some people I'd like you to meet." Tony said, taking her over to the group. First up was Pepper. "This is my wonderful girlfriend, Pepper Potts."

Melanie shook her hand. "Hi nice to meet you."

Next, Tony took her to Thor. "This is Thor, God of Thunder."

"Hi, I'm Melanie." she said. She reached out to shake his hand but he took it, and kissed it.

"It is my pleasure to meet you, Lady Melanie."

Melanie blushed as Tony dragged her towards Clint. "Melanie, this is Legolas."

"Ha ha ha, very funny" Clint said dryly. He turned to Melanie and shook her hand. "Clint Barton, good to meet you."

"Good to meet you too." She shook his hand and looked over his shoulder at his quiver. "Are those your arrows?" she asked.

"Yeah, why?" he wondered.

"The tail end of them is an interesting shape and might be slowing down the arrow itself. If you'd like, I could take a look at them. Maybe create a more aerodynamic design for a faster shot. Are they experimental?"

Clint nodded. "Yeah, Tony just made them. Haven't tried them out yet, but if you could take a look at them that be great, thanks."

"No problem" she replied.

"Alright, on to Natasha!" Tony declared as he brought his friend to said assassin. Melanie smiled. "Hi," she said. Her gaze shifted to Natasha's belt. More specifically, the gun she had on it. "Is that a 9mm Professional Lightweight handgun?" she asked.

Natasha's eyes widened a little. She didn't expect to know what kind of gun it was, let alone its caliber. "Yeah, how did you know that?"

Melanie's smile widened. "It's my favorite. The only one I'll use when I go down to the range."

Tony started pulling her to the next person. "Time to move on." Next up was Steve. "Hey Spangles, this is my friend Melanie." He glared slightly at the nickname but smiled when he faced Melanie. "The name's Steve. Nice to meet you ma'am."

"Nice to meet you too." She said. Tony pulled on her arm, a sign that it was time to move on. Still smiling, she rolled her eyes a bit. "And away we go. Bye Steve."

Tony had brought her over to a man with brown hair and glasses. "And to conclude our introductions, meet Bruce."

"Dr. Banner," she greeted, shaking his hand as she did with everyone but Tony. "It's a pleasure to meet you. Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. Absolutely incredible." Tony shot him a look that clearly said 'I told you that she was like me'.

"Thanks, I look forward to working with you. Tony told us that you specialize in gamma radiation." Bruce said.

Melanie nodded. "I do, and I look forward to working with you as well. It's not every day you meet someone so accomplished in their field of work."

"Thank you" he said.

"Well, if we're done here, I can have JARVIS direct you to your room so you can unpack." said Tony.

"Okay," Melanie replied. She said goodbye to everyone and grabbed her bags. "Lead the way JARVIS." She declared playfully. The AI directed her down a hallway and soon she was out of sight.

* * *

That night, Tony planned for everyone to go out to dinner and claimed that it was mandatory for them to dress nicely. The guys were all pretty quick to get ready, just a button down and a pair of slacks, so they were all sitting on the couch in the living room watching television while waiting for the girls. Melanie came down still in the clothes she arrived in, with something behind her back, and all of the guys looked at her. "Tony?" she asked. "I have a few questions."

"Fire away." Was the reply.

"Okay, well my first question would be, were are all of my shirts and dress pants, and the second would be, where did you get this?"

She brought a strapless navy blue cocktail dress with a beaded design in front by the neckline, from behind her back. It was extremely short and remarkably tight. The reactions it got were all different. Clint's jaw dropped to the ground, Bruce's glasses almost slipped off of his face, Thor almost fell off the couch, and Steve had turned an unnatural shade of red. Tony was the only one who was unaffected.

"To answer your first question," he said. "I hid them. To answer your second, I've had it."

"I've been looking for this dress since college, you've had it this whole time?" she asked.

"Yup, and that's what your wearing tonight." He said matter of factly.

"No, it's not." She answered.

"C'mon, just try it? I wanna see how you look. I haven't seen you in that dress since sophomore year, please?"

She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed in defeat. "Fine" She began walking back to her room, when she began walking back to her room, when she stopped in her tracks and turned around to face the men. "And don't think I didn't notice that you switched my flats with heals." She said. She continued walking to her room.

"Wear those with it!" Tony called out to her.

As soon as she was out of hearing range, Clint was the first to speak. "You're getting her to wear that? Nice!" He and Tony high-fived and Clint asked him how he hid her clothes.

"I have my ways." Tony said. Before long, they heard the familiar sound of heals coming down the halls. Melanie walked into the living room and stood in front of the guys.

"Happy?" she asked Tony.

"Ecstatic" he replied. The reactions of the others were similar to their previous ones except this time, Thor did fall to the floor. He quickly got back up and retook his seat.

"Well, what do you think?" She asked.

"I like it." Tony said.

She rolled her eyes but she couldn't keep from smiling just a little bit. "Thor, what about you? What do you think?"

"Ummm," the demigod was at a loss for words. Then he remembered what Clint had told him to say when Lady Jane asked his opinion on clothes. "Do you like it?"

She grinned. "How very guy-ish of an answer. No, honestly, do you like it?" Now this was a question he could answer more easily.

"Yes, it is most flattering."

"Thank you, what about you Steve?" she asked. Steve, still as red and panicked as ever, said only one word. "Yes" That was the truth. He thought it was very nice but women most definitely did not wear that type of dress out in public in his day.

"Thanks," Melanie couldn't help but smile at the captain's innocence and bashfulness. "Clint?"

He had no problem answering her. "You look awesome." His cool tone dripping with cockiness. She could tell he had every intention to flirt with her to no end. It's not that she disliked Clint in any way, no, not at all. He just wasn't her type.

"Thank you, and what about you Bruce, do you like it?"

He just nodded and said "yeah", not trusting himself not to say something stupid out of nervousness.

"Alright, then I guess it's settled." Melanie declared. "Besides, Tony, you won't stop until I do and I much rather wearing it out to dinner than to breakfast one morning, or in the lab."

As soon as that was said, Pepper and Natasha both entered the room wearing blouses and dress pants. They took one look at Melanie and said "Tony?" at the exact same time, identical smirks adorned both their faces.

"Yup" she answered.

"Well, were all here, so let's get going." Pepper said with a smile.

They all got into the car to head to the restaurant. Thor, Steve, Bruce, and Melanie sat in the seat facing the driver and Tony, Pepper, Clint, and Natasha sat facing them. It was a bit confusing getting into the vehicle, but they managed and were off to dinner.

* * *

At the restaurant, halfway through the meal, Clint asked the question they were all waiting for. "Hey Melanie, do you have any stories about Tony and you in college?"

A devilish smirk made its way onto Melanie's face. She was about to speak, but Tony beat her to it. "No, she does not. There are no stories. We were very boring people back in college."

"Oh no," Melanie said, now talking to Tony. There was no longer a smirk on her face, but a look of seriousness with a hint of playfulness. "You put me in this outfit. It's revenge time." She turned back to Clint and the smirk reappeared. "I've got plenty of stories. I'm sure you'll hear all of them by the time I leave but there's one in particular I think you'd all like to hear." Her voice was sugary sweet, contradicting her sadistic smirk. By the look on Tony's face, he knew exactly which story it was. "Back in our junior year of college, Tony and I went to this one party, but after a drink or two, he decided that it was lame and he didn't want to be there anymore, so we bailed. He wanted to go into town but he was tipsy and I was sober, so I ended up driving in and parking at a curb. I was about to pay the meter for an hour or two but before I could, Tony shoved a whole bunch of quarters in it. I think we ended up getting like, thirty six hours. Anyway, Tony and I are walking through town, when we pass a gas station. He goes in, gets someone to buy him a six pack of beer, and chugs them all in under fifteen minutes while sitting in the parking lot. At this point, he's pretty much wasted. If that's not enough, he staggers to the duck pond at the park. I follow him to make sure he doesn't get hit by a car or anything because hey, that's what friends are for. He sits down on one of the benches, next to a homeless man. Then he starts flirting with him. Eventually, he starts making out with the hobo. I, having not drank anything, am standing there sober, with a camera. Being the good, responsible friend, I take Tony back to my apartment and call us both out sick for the next day. I only took him to my place because it was really late and he was so hammered, I don't think he knew which way was up, let alone where his keys were. I put Tony in my bed and I take the couch. The next day, he has the worst hangover. He's in bed all day and I'm there with aspirin, water, and a trash can. We spent most of our time my place. At one point, he was living with me but still had his own apartment, so he moved out of there and in with me. It was cool, two sixteen year old living together, going to college. We got money from our parents for rent and stuff, and there was a diner three blocks away so getting food wasn't really a dangerous trek. I was actually quite impressed, during all those years, Tony managed to keep his hands to himself, and the stun gun only came out five times. The threat of it didn't do much the first time, but after the second trip to the emergency room, he caught on pretty quick."

By this time, the entire table was laughing so hard, they were nearing tears. Well, almost the entire table. Tony was only smiling but it's obvious that he wanted to laugh.

"Please tell me that you still have those pictures!" Clint said.

"Nope, I burned them all." Tony told them.

Everyone looked to Melanie for confirmation. She smirked again. "As far as he knows, yes."

"Wait, there are more copies?!" Tony was almost outraged and the laughter returned. Then Melanie began talking again.

* * *

It was 1:23 AM in the tower and a certain Dr. Bruce Banner was sitting at the table in the kitchen, unable to sleep. He wasn't doing much of anything. Just staring at the clock on the stove, waiting for the numbers to change. He heard footsteps and was surprised to find Melanie in the doorway. She was barefoot, wearing a pair of pink sleep shorts and a white tank top.

"Couldn't sleep either?" he asked her.

She shook her head. "Too much to see."

"What do you mean?"

She chuckled a bit. "I was looking out the window, taking everything in. Living in the open country, skyscrapers are a rare sight. I love them though. Tony always said I was a city girl and I was wasting my time in the middle of nowhere. Always meant to move to one but I never really got to it. Anyway, I heard a noise and asked JARVIS what it was. He told me that you were in the kitchen and you couldn't sleep. Tony had mentioned that you were a tea lover too, so I brought this with me." She showed him a glass jar filled with crushed tea leaves. "I stopped by a tea shop on my way here and picked it up. I don't really know what it is. Just asked the lady behind the counter for a jar of whatever she recommended." She looked at the label to see what exactly she had purchased. "Tranquil Cranberry Orange Blossom" she read aloud. "Never tried it, wanna have a cup with me?"

He hesitated a little bit before agreeing. The tea was put on and it was soon ready and in their mugs.

"Ready?" Melanie asked Bruce. He smiled at her and nodded. They sipped their tea at the same the same time and turned to look at each other. Both of their faces showed deep thought. Eventually, Melanie nodded and said, "I like it, you?"

"It's good." He replied.

Melanie placed her mug down on the table and looked at Bruce. "You never told me what you're doing up."

"I'd rather not talk about it."

"Okay" she said simply. He was obviously a bit distressed and she wasn't going to make it worse by badgering him about something that wasn't any of her business in the first place. Unlike Tony, she knew when to leave things alone and when to get answers.

A comfortable silence filled the kitchen until Bruce spoke up. "At dinner, you said that you lived with Tony in college. What was it like living with him before he 'mellowed out' a bit."

"Well, …." She began.

And this is how the time was spent. They talked for hours about small, insignificant things and drank tea until around five o'clock when they went back to bed. Neither of them particularly remembered what they talked about, just that it was nice to have someone to talk to.

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**There you have it, my first Avengers fanfic. I hope you all had as good a time reading it as I did writing it. Review and tell me what you think. See you next update! :-)**


	2. Sparks In The Lab

**Hello everybody, I just wanted you guys to know that I hope to update this story every Sunday night but sometimes I might be late. Oh, by the way, the rest of the chapters in this story are different days and they will probably be a bit shorter than the first chapter. Hope you enjoy! :-) **

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Avengers, no copyright intended.**

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Mondays, the universal day of hatred. It's safe to say that 99% of the entire population of Earth hates Mondays. However, Bruce Banner and Melanie Davis were part of that one percent that didn't care. The two scientists were up bright and early, working in the lab on figuring out how Bruce could control 'The Other Guy'.

"What about nanobots in the bloodstream?" Bruce asked.

"I think an injectable temporary chromosomal alteration serum might work better." Melanie argued.

"Then we would have to find a chemical compound that triggers 'The Other Guy' to make an appearance, and testing it might get messy." He said.

She shook her head. "We're not testing it on you, just some of your cells. C'mon, let's start working on those chemicals."

They ran off to opposite parts of the lab to grab various chemicals. While Melanie was looking at different containers on a shelf all the way across the room, Tony snuck up on Bruce and pulled him into another room.

"Tony, what the hell was that for?" Bruce exclaimed.

"Tranquil Cranberry Orange Blossom" Tony said, as if it explained everything.

"What?"

"Tranquil Cranberry Orange Blossom tea. I know what happened last night, with you and Mel. Everything."

"How?"

"JARVIS's security cameras, duh."

"So? What are you getting at Tony?"

"You two have the hots for each other! And I'm going to be the one responsible for bringing you guys together."

"What! No! We don't 'have the hots for each other', and you will do no such thing. Now I'm going back to the lab."

"Don't deny it!" Tony called as Bruce started walking away.

* * *

Bruce went to the cabinet of chemicals he was at before Tony pulled him away, got some bottles, and ran back to the work space. What he didn't notice was that Melanie was doing the same thing. Both scientists collided and ended up on the floor along with the containers of chemicals. Thankfully none of the bottles broke or spilled. Every bottle in the lab was plastic and had a spill proof lid. Apparently, Tony had too many accidents and Pepper didn't trust him, so she made him use those. When they hit the ground, they landed in a rather compromising position with Melanie on top of Bruce. They were a tangle of limbs and their faces were just centimeters apart. Both of them apologized repeatedly and were shade of red that just might put Steve's signature blush to shame. They got up quickly and went back to work, trying hide their embarrassment and forget that it ever happened. They managed to work for the entire day and even a little into the night before more chaos occurred. Melanie had gotten rather far in her work, she found some compound that she thought might work and she wanted to test them. Then she heard a cry of pain. She whipped her head around to where Bruce was standing, instantly checking to see if he was alright. His back was to her but when he started to make his way over to the chemical wash station, she had a pretty good idea of what had happened. Melanie took this as an opportunity to run to her room and grab some things. When she came back, Bruce was still at the wash station and she dragged him over to a small table in the corner that Pepper made him have for when she forced him to eat during one of his many "inventing sprees". She took his injured hand and began applying some type of lotion.

"What is that?" Bruce asked.

"It's Chemical Burn Cream. I was coming to work with Tony in the lab so I figured I'd need it." Melanie replied.

Bruce chuckled a bit. As soon as she was done with the cream, Melanie started wrapping his hand in bandage. When the wrapping was complete, she didn't let go of his hand and he made no effort to pull it away either. Both of them just stared, lost in each others' eyes. They stayed like this for while. His hand in hers, neither of their gazes shifting even a millimeter. It was as if time was frozen. Only, after almost a full minute, time started back up again and they snapped of it, both just as awkwardly embarrassed as they were just hours ago. Leave it to Bruce to kill the silence.

"So, where did you learn first aid?" He asked Melanie.

"Never really learned, just picked up some things. Stitching, relocating dislocations, treating wounds, setting bones, the basic stuff." she replied.

"Oh, well, it's late, I think we should call it a night." he said.

Melanie sighed tiredly. "Yeah, sounds good."

The two of them bid each other goodnight and went their separate ways. Both thinking the exact same thing, _"What the hell was that? And is it bad that I kind of liked it?"_

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**Hope you liked the chapter. Review and tell me what you think! Bye for now. -RA88 :-)**


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